Sorry, ran out of time couldn't finish the third part of the epic pic trilogy - finding internet pics is surprisingly time-consuming. Might be too late now, but whatever. Because it's time. Bring out the wayback machine, because it's time to head back to: NEVERWINTER NIGHTS.
Okay, everyone who every dicked around with the Neverwinter Nights editor already knows how it works. But for those who didn't, it works by giving you a grid which you drop pre-assembled blocks of tiles down onto. Now then, as soon as they jacked stairs into the level editor, you get this (you'll have to scroll down a little to get to the stairs):
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/191/index/5544421/1 A size and shape that anyone following this should by now by intimately familiar with. You will also note that the balcony above is the same width as the stairs, and the hallway beyond is same as them both.
Which is only logical. NWN is on a grid, and if you make a gridline stair in a single square, you end up with a 10x10 grid square stair.
If we then move on to take a closer look at their specific design decisions here
http://www.giantbomb.com/neverwinter-nights/61-9953/all-images/52-177183/nwn__3_/51-203232/ and here
http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ad_d/nwn/screens/nwn_01.jpg and hereand the second pic here
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2walkthrough.Detail&id=22 you will notice some familiarly-size crates are conveniently stacked around. Which of course means that it's now time for a fight, and that we have to hide - whoops, wrong game (sorry, couldn't resist). What it actually means is those large crates aren't a new, innovative design decision in the modern games. They were using those crates all along. They even frequently stack the crates back then. The only difference is in the newer games the crates can be used as cover.
If you take a look here
http://xtreview.com/images/article4/nwn1.jpg at the tiles on the floor, you will notice a similar size and concept to the tiles in the newer games.
Now then, if you scroll down a ways on a Dragon Age Origins
http://guides.gamepressure.com/dragonageorigins/guide.asp?ID=8513 you'll see some familiar looking long crates. But what we really want to get into here is the pillars. Take a close look at the walls. You'll notice that at regular intervals on many walls, a pillar juts out a short distance from the wall. Scroll down to the dungeons in this page
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3462975&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=10 and you'll find the same idea. The pillars change, but the general shape and spacing remains. In the latest, however, many of their levels are no longer directly walled, but are defined by fences and the like, and instead are surrounded by a shell to provide an illusion of greater space. You have the same trudgeable area as before, but the space appears grander due to the space between the fence and the shell. But when walls return, the concept returns, as per the Dragon Age II link above.
This thread also notes a number of DA II copy past of textures and design elements
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/7534892/3
Now, what effect does all this have? Like any design decision, there are many effect, but there are 3 that are particularly relevant to the point.
- In using large blocks over a small space, the number of shapes that are possible is small. To illustrate, take the 1x5 vs 1x5 balcony fight in Mass Effect II cited earlier. Essentially, you're fighting in a 5x5 room of which you can move on a 1x5 balcony. Bioware can't extend that 1x5 balcony to 2x5, because two 2x5s in a 5x5 space would put the opponents right on top of each other. They can only extend or shorten the balcony sideways. But only to a certain degree, as each point they move it extends or retracts the balcony by 10 feet. If instead their boxes were half the size, then they would have a 10x10 grid to play around with in the same space. They could extend out from a 2x10 to a 3x10 or retract to a 1x10 (though the Bioware AI would likely have difficulty with a 1x), without changing the concept of the fight, and you could also extend and contract the balcony sideways to a great degree. What's more, you can do a combination of both. Then, too, if their concepts for basic design allowed for angles, that would add another multiple to the available shapes.
- That they use commonly shaped building blocks across all their games doesn't do anything to the game in and of itself. But added onto their use of a formulaic story, recycled plot points, recycled character types, common design elements, and the same voice actors, it can be difficult to tell one of their games from another if you play two of them close together and, you know, you kind of fall into a half doze when one of your companions in doing a long whinge.
- One of the advantages of common blocks is you can split the design of a space over several different people, since all teams automatically always know the size of everything in the game, and a separated design team can make decals of a large size without having to do any editing for location, and also without having to worry about someone changing the size of the locale, etc. But, this does have the added effect of causing the designs to tend to be made in even block lengths. (ie you'll find lots of decals of 1 block or 2 blocks in length)
To put it another way, you can picture their level design as using large duplo building blocks across a small area. That it's such a small area and they use such large blocks limits the kinds of shapes they can achieve, which lends their games a uniform structure. Of course, they could decide to use legos tomorrow, and greatly increase the number of shapes available to them, or they could go erector set and also have angles available.
Or in other words, if you always draw your levels from the same duplo building blocks, your games will all be of the same blockiness.
Now, what does all of this matter? Not a lot. There was no opinion attached to it. I only stated it to establish the fact that that is how they build their levels so that I could make my point. My point being, they do this, so they lose their excuse for copy/paste. Even an indie loses points for copy/paste in the reviews. A AAA should be losing a whole letter grade at least just for this one issue for something like the Dragon Age II fiasco.
